Only Madmen Fall in Love With Worms
by sherwoodfox
Summary: A series of stand-alone snapshots of the relationship between Kimblee and Envy, set within the same story, but not chronologically connected. (In other words, the world needs more content for this pairing.)
1. Jealous

She was so pretty.

They didn't know her name; some brand-new private, pretty pretty private, fresh out of the military school with her big blue eyes and her tight little ass showing through her uniform, all tan skin and bright sun and soft human skin. She was hot, and so pretty, and she knew it too- twirling those long blonde locks between her fingers and giggling, shifting from foot to foot, biting her lips so they plumped up and turned pink. Like she was just the cutest little thing you ever did see. Pretending- because everyone was always pretending- that she didn't know precisely how attractive she was. Submissive, gorgeous, and probably dumb as a post- the perfect lady love. The kind of girl any military man would wish for.

She was disgusting.

The feeling of hatred in their heart was almost too much to contain; it threatened to burst their tiny, fluttering chest, overflow from their fragile shape and burn through to the bone. Who did she think she was, anyway? Wasn't the military supposed to be a professional environment? How dare she work her way through military school- a challenging feat, they had thought- just to stand there flirting like some street walker- no doubt with any half-decent man that came by, too. She had no standards, no sense of dignity. Someone like her could have only made their way to a position in Central by whoring herself out, lying on her back and writhing like a worm and getting her teachers to write her tests, because she was too weak-willed and too miserable to do anything herself. Stupid, dumb, disgusting human bitch. Getting those stupid, dumb, disgusting men to work for her. The epitome of vile human nature.

He wouldn't fall for it though. He was so much better than she was.

They fluttered their wings anxiously, trying to shift on the windowsill to get a better look at his face. His expression from here was unclear, his face turned away, unreadable. He wasn't impressed, was he? He didn't like her, did he? Surely not. Surely, he of all people wouldn't fall for such stupid lowlife behaviour. He was better than other humans, by far.

Kimblee was standing still before the desk- as still and refined as he usually was- and then he turned, his face coming into view. He was giving the woman a little smile. Why was he smiling? Did he think she was pretty? They couldn't see where his eyes were through the haze of the glass- no amount of shifting in this compact bird's body could lend a clearer view. Was he looking at her- really looking at her, eyes going up and down her body, like so many men did to their older sister? How could he like her? How could he think she was pretty?

Does he ever think I'm pretty?

So pathetic she was. Imperfect humanity. She was nothing, no one, a worthless crushable insect. If they really wanted to they could break down the window right now- transform into a tiger or a bear or even their true self-

-no, they wouldn't do that, not in front of him-

-they could rip her head off in the office just like that, in seconds. Watch the blood spray over everything and listen to the air and shit coming squirting out of her body. They could tear out her intestines and throw them around like garlands, or poison her with a snake's bite that made her flesh turn blue and puff up like a balloon. They could pull out her spine and pluck out her eyeballs, make her sag into a puddle of flesh without her bones, burn her face with acid until there was nothing pretty about her at all-

And then what?

That wouldn't fix anything, really. They would only get in trouble. He still wouldn't look at them like that.

They watched Kimblee laugh mildly at something the woman had said, his face a picture of perfect gentlemanly charm.

No, that wouldn't fix anything at all.

Envy didn't want to destroy her.

Envy wanted to be her.

They took flight, suddenly unable to handle seeing that sight anymore.

In the end, it's always that, isn't it?


	2. Shapeshifter

Kimblee accepted his tray of rations from the mess, eyeing the contents as he left the line with some dissatisfaction. A thick stew again today, with buttered bread- nothing wrong with that of course, but to drink there was only water. Coffee hadn't been served at the front line in weeks, and he missed it more than anything else from before the war. In fact, it was the only thing he missed.

Kimblee sat alone on a bench on the far side of the camp, the afternoon rays of an Ishvalan sun slanted as the hours slipped away into the evening. Shadows stretched from tables and pillars, elongated and deformed, their shapes made strange in comparison to their sources. The transformative properties of the world really are quite fascinating, thought Kimblee, as he moved food with a mechanical grace from his plate to his mouth. Light that changed its angle, trees that lost their leaves, lives that were forced into death. Food, that was another transformation- from cow to beef to stew, to the contents of Kimblee himself, to waste. Everything was fluid and malleable, from one state to the next, their shapes easily changed and disguised and their true natures hidden, if they had one at all...

Shapeshifting.

Now, why was he thinking about that again?

Kimblee took a drink of his water, tasteless and lukewarm, a feeling like swallowing nothing. His expression was mild and his posture relaxed, yet despite that all the nearby benches were vacant. No one wanted to sit with the Crimson Alchemist.He knew the other soldiers talked about him behind his back; murmurs of admiration tinged with concern, no one really saying anything bad but no one liking it either...they didn't know what to make of him now. Had they thought he could be easily understood? Had they put him in a little box in their heads, the strange and lonesome (but perfectly polite, entirely acceptable) Crimson Alchemist who never really amounted to anything, and no one ever really liked? Other people had never understood what went on in Kimblee's head. They could never feel the way he felt. If he had wanted to, he could have summoned up quite the powerful resentment against them. Made their tiny minds explode with the truths of his world, show them all who was the fittest.

But that was a very dull line of thought.

It was no different an attitude from any of the other office politics that riddled the military; no different from the children in uniforms who isolated him at the lunch table and gossiped like it meant something. Kimblee didn't resent them- he didn't care about them. They were boring in comparison to the things he had seen, the things he had done.

Kimblee put down his fork, his meal finished cleanly on the plate, and looked down at his palms. There was nothing as appallingly wonderful as the moment of impact, the tearing, world-wrenching sound of the explosion, splitting the air and rending the universe in pieces. There was nothing as horrifically beautiful as the the aftermath of that jarring blossom, the symphony of death, the melodies of broken buildings and broken bodies. Beauty, others would say, was delicate and sweet and only ever good, flowers and fields and sunrises. But to Kimblee beauty was vicious, cruel, hateful and twisted like broken pipes in a blown-away house-

-with skin like alabaster, and burning violet eyes-

-inherently unnatural, and monstrous.

Kimblee realized he had been breathing heavily, his palms raised together as if in preparation for a prayer. Soldiers around the camp were watching him from the corners of their eyes, their mouths half open and their heads turned. It was bad, really. This sort of image wouldn't do at all.

Kimblee sat straighter and compulsively adjusted the lay of his jacket, hating for an instant its heavy constraintiveness. He needed to control himself better- he became far too excited when he started thinking like that. At the very least, he needed retain a passable facade of humanity; even if he had only one face, it was the least he could do in comparison.


	3. Laugh

Kimblee loved it when Envy laughed.

The shivers of pure delight that the sound gave him were only comparable to the raucous noise of a collapsing building, or the fine music of a classical symphony- though he supposed it more closely resembled the former than the latter. It was a real laugh- unlike people, who laughed not because they were amused but because it was social convention, a compliment to the speaker, polite titters with no feeling behind them- no, Envy only laughed when they were truly happy, and their joy was so huge and uncontrollable it took over their entire body and still spilled over, filling the air in the room. Kimblee never saw such demonstrations of pure emotion, raw and true and unfiltered, from humans. He wasn't entirely sure if humans were even capable of it- he certainly wasn't. Envy was a creature of terrible emotion, feeling everything so much more strongly than everyone else, and in a way that made them lovely.

Lovely, to Kimblee's tastes at least- and he could acknowledge that most people were incapable of seeing the world the way he did. In fact, Kimblee expected that most people would find Envy's laughter downright hideous. It was loud and high-pitched and cracked around the edges, borderline, strange and wild as it wrenched itself from their play-pretend lungs. Envy's laugh was as wicked and insane as they were, a sound like the hinges on an old door that opened onto nowhere, like the cries of hungry vultures in a desert of corpses, like the shriek of metal being ripped apart in an explosion. In short, the sound of everything terrible in the world. And to Kimblee, the sound of everything beautiful.

The moments preceding such a laugh were wonderful, too. A well-played trick, a mask removed at last, a sudden and bloody murder. Nothing triggered such perfect hysteria in Envy like one-upping a fool, like discovering one person more pathetic and hateful than themself. He had made Envy laugh so much during the Ishvalan war- placing explosions carefully to maximize the length of the building's collapse, making mazes of death for the Ishvalan rats, letting people wriggle out of their hidey holes believing they were safe, only to rip them apart again. In such moments Envy became completely, incredibly, gorgeously deranged; they were a pleasure to look at and listen to, a savage joy, incomparable to anything peace and civilization could produce. Kimblee could remember now the things they would say-

Let her keep going...let her think she'll get away…

Hmm...this time, just the women! Can you target them only?

Amazing! You are amazing!

Blow them all to HELL.

Can you make it so their legs come off, but they keep living?

Teach them to look down on ME! HahahahaHAHAHA-!

Now kiss me.

The silence of the prison cell was all the more empty in Kimblee's ears now, having immersed himself in such pleasant memories. It almost hurt to be here, so alone in the dark, the only sounds the dull and repetitive tap of the guards as they changed shifts and the other prisoners as they murmured to each other, empty words in an empty place, the dull hum that was life without a war.

What Kimblee would do to hear music again. He longed to go back to the podium, hold his arms open to the orchestra of the world, conduct it to the time of his own self-composed song. A special symphony, with magic unlike any other. The wails of broken families were the violins, the groans of the dying the brass, the crash and bang of the falling buildings his percussion. Each beat, each sweep of the sound, directed by the rising and falling of his hands where he stood at the head of it all, the fittest, the survivor, the rightful conductor of the band. The most beautiful music there was to play was the music of life and death.

And overtop it all, the lead singer, the voice of his favourite primadonna, hot and wild and filthy as the desert was itself…

Looking down at the marks on his palms in the moonlight, Kimblee promised himself that such a day would come about again. Even if he waited here for years more, he would hear his song again.

He would make them laugh again.


	4. Sleeping

That night, Kimblee had left the window open.

Even on the job, even out here in the East in a budgeted hotel with barely any time to treat his human needs, he had thought to leave the window open. It was...it was sweet, really, though it made them squirm inside to think in such terms. They didn't even really need it, if they wanted to they could always get in, but the gesture stood as an invitation, and if they had ever been truly human- with flesh, and blood to warm it- they would have certainly flushed.

Nevertheless, it was past midnight- nearing the witching hour- when Envy landed silently on the windowsill, folding their black feathered wings and cocking their head from side to side, using their unusual raven's vision to examine Kimblee as he slept. He looked...defenceless. So exhausted was he, lines against his mouth and bruises under his eyes, he hadn't even woken when Envy had arrived. He usually did. Even if very deeply asleep he always seemed to know when they were there. But he hadn't woken tonight.

It was a little embarrassing to see him so vulnerable. So weak and human and fragile. Had they pushed him too far, too fast? They hadn't thought that the jail sentence would have weakened him so much. It hadn't been so very long to them. What if someone else were to break in, now? Someone with a bad intent? Would Kimblee wake up and be able to save himself?

The thought was disconcerting; Envy shook out their feathers. They had never really thought about Kimblee dying before- all humans did die, of course, and they knew that, but to think of Kimblee that way- their Kimblee, their alchemist, their human- seemed almost wrong. Like it couldn't possibly be true.

Kimblee had always seemed larger than life. Magnificent, that was a good word for him; the way he stood, the way he smiled, his arms wide open, a symbol of complete victory and raw power and talent. And so difficult to trick- he had always recognized Envy, no matter the skin they wore, he had always been able to pick them out of a crowd and offer them that look, that look of evil amusement and (almost more importantly), adoration…

He seemed so frail now. Each breath could be marked by the slow rise and fall of his chest, each beat of his heart faintly visible in the outline of his throat. A bit of sweat gathered on the back of his neck, and his hair was coming untied from its ponytail.

Envy didn't really like seeing him this way.

Silently, Envy fluttered to the ground and shifted, red lightning flashing in the dark corners of the hotel room as their body expanded and changed, taking on the harsh (cute) features of their preferred form. They stood and threw their hair back, the way that he liked, but even then Kimblee did not wake. Envy looked down at him for a few minutes more, contemplating, and then slowly crawled into the bed, trying to move lightly so their tremendous weight wouldn't break anything. They curled gently into the hollow beneath one of Kimblee's arms, eyes glinting in the moonlight like a cat's. Still, the man slumbered on.

They had never done this before- it was such a strange, human gesture. It was a little embarrassing, they thought, but deep down underneath all their grotesque emotions it was a little gratifying, to be so close to someone like this.They wouldn't stay long, they promised the night air. They were just staying to make sure that Kimblee would be safe. It wasn't anything that weird- he was only human-

-for now-

-in the end, and he clearly needed some taking care of. Envy didn't mind; it would be far too troublesome (too horrible) if Kimblee were to die.

He and they had a plan, after all.


	5. Crying

Envy came often to visit Kimblee is his cell.

Well, often, in a general sense of the word. They never visited enough to satisfy Kimblee, for whom the waits in between were dull and grey with prison life, and they probably visited too frequently when measured in their immortal impression of time. Nevertheless, it could be said that they visited often, replacing guards on the nightwatch or crawling in through windows and pipes, always unplanned, lighting up the inside of the cell with the red fire of a transmutation and later with the soft glow of their skin. They brought with them news of the outside world, and vague promises, and strange disjointed murmurings of things they wanted to say but for some reason, did not.

One night, they came with tears.

It was an ordinary prison evening when the serpent slithered through the ventilation shaft in his cell, and Kimblee smiled and greeted them as always. The reptilian shape was, after all, less easy to read than the humanoid. However he did begin to sense that something was amiss when they didn't immediately take their preferred shape, instead winding across the floor and up his leg, resting their scaly head on his knee. The gesture was pleasantly unnerving- were they playing with him? He couldn't tell. As best he could with his shackled hands he stroked the soft snakeskin of their cheek, admiring in the back of his mind the way they shone in the faint moonlight coming from his window.

"Envy?" he asked, still uncertain of how he should behave, because their moods were unpredictable and often tempestuous, and he could never be entirely sure that he wasn't going to be mauled.

(Though that was part of why he loved them so much.)

"What's all this about?" he tried again, and this time he was rewarded with a wave of brilliant red lightning as the snake twisted away into nothing, replaced by the lean figure he knew so well, still curled around his leg. When he heard them breath- a weak, shaky sound, tremulous like a sapling in a storm- he really knew something was wrong.

Envy looked up to him at last, and their terrible violet eyes were flooded with tears. The fat drops gathered thickly there, pregnant-seeming and spilling over, catching themselves in their eyelashes and running down their cheeks. It was an ethereal look- their skin never changed colour, and so even with the effort of crying it was whiter than bleach, and the liquid on their face sparkled in the moonlight like diamonds. Kimblee wondered then what it tasted like. Envy breathed again, and the shuddering sound was beautiful to Kimblee's ears, striking a chord in the bottom of his heart.

"I don't know what to do," they rasped, their voice going up in pitch like a petulant child, and then they broke down in full, pressing their face into Kimblee's lap and sobbing. He couldn't help but sit there, almost frozen in awe. He had never experienced this before- and the sounds of their crying were just as lovely, just as wonderful and twisted as their laughter. It was doing something to him he had never anticipated- plucking at strings so deep in his heart he had often figured them buried. A song he had never heard played. Awkwardly he stroked their wiry hair, wishing again as he often did that his hands could be unbound to do his bidding.

"Come now, my dear," he murmured to the trembling monster beneath him, his voice as soothing and soft as he could make it. An excitement was flaring in his gut; he wanted very desperately to know what could have possibly caused such an incredible reaction in them- though he didn't really want them to stop crying just yet. Broken things were always more beautiful than whole ones to Kimblee, and it seemed that the cracks in Envy ran deeper than he had thought. "Tell me what this is all about." he added, admiring the feeling of their tears soaking through his prison garb. Envy snuffed.

"She's dead," they whimpered, drawing even more closely around his leg. "She's dead, and he doesn't even care."

This statement was hardly descriptive enough to warrant comprehension in Kimblee, but he didn't move to prompt them further, letting the words come out in between sobs, the air thick and heavy with the sounds of misery. In that moment he was so very grateful for his life, for the world that had allowed him to experience this. He must be blessed.

"He killed her- that man- burnt her into ashes. There's nothing left, Kimblee! She's gone!"

"Who's gone, hmm?" Kimblee- with as much grace as he could muster in that position- cupped his hands under Envy's chin, tilting their head up so he could see their shining eyes and wet lips. They swallowed, the muscles in their throat moving underneath their skin, and Kimblee was suddenly vaguely worried that he might not be able to disguise his arousal.

"Lust," they moaned. "Lust is dead. And that...that would be okay, you know, but it's not, because he's not even trying to bring her back. He doesn't care. That's wrong, right, Kimblee? People are supposed to love their children, right?"

Envy bit their lower lip, shuddering in Kimblee's arms. Their grasp on his leg was uncomfortably tight now, uncomprehending of their own strength, cutting off the blood flow. They weren't quite looking at him anymore either- their eyes wandered over his head, staring into their mind to something he couldn't see, their breathing beginning to steady.

"I don't think he loves us."

Their gaze came back down to his, soft and weak and pitiful, and in that gaze Kimblee saw a very deep misery, a misery of centuries, ingrained in the very core of their being. An integral part in the nature of this sin.

"I don't know what to do," they repeated, eyelids fluttering, voice becoming stronger. "He always told us we would have a place with him...in the end. It's the same thing that he tells those idiots in Central, the 'chosen ones'. Exactly the same, in fact."

Envy sniffed and looked to the side, face still shining but eyes becoming dry.

"But I believed him, of course. I Envy, the liar. I believed him. We're family. But he doesn't care. He'll let us die. He might even kill us- what are we, after all? Discarded things he didn't want in him anymore. He doesn't...he doesn't love me."

At that last word their voice broke, tears welling up again, and Kimblee couldn't help but smile a little. He placed his thumbs in the hollow between Envy's throat and jawbones, rubbing slightly, exactly how and where they liked being touched the most.

"I love you," he murmured, feeling those burning eyes settle on him again. Had he ever said that before? He didn't remember; not that it mattered. It had been true for a long time, now. He felt Envy swallow again, convulsively, and his smile spread a little wider.

"It would be quite a blow to my poor human heart if you were to die, my dear," he said, mocking, knowing that if in that supposed future they were dead, he most certainly was as well- "so I guess we'll have to stop that. We can't let him go through with it now."

Envy stared at him with huge, childlike eyes- they could look so innocent, Kimblee thought, for a monster- and he could see pieces of the world reflected there, gears turning and clicking into place, new possibilities opening behind those eyes where there had been only one before. How lovely they were, really.

"He can't betray us if we betray him first," he said. In the silence after those words, Kimblee watched as that miserable, pathetic look in their eyes began to change. The fire was rekindled- innocence and wonder replaced by cruelty and malice. Pure hatred, and wickedness, and insane uncontrollable evil. The other side of Envy. They wet their sharp teeth with their tongue and with one rough motion wiped their tears from their face, their body tensing and coiling in Kimblee's embrace. Reptilian, like they really were.

"Alright then," they said, and now their voice was clear and scorching, the way it usually was. They started to smile as well, the quirk of their lips mischievous, new ideas no doubt squirming to life in their brain. I'm having the most amazing night,Kimblee thought. Their rapid fluctuations in emotion were such a pleasure to watch. And now there was a new excitement buzzing under his skin- the prospect of bringing down the most powerful being in the world. Who could claim to have done such a thing? He had been given the most exquisite chances in life, and there was no way he would ever waste them.

"That will be quite the trick," said Envy, and then they laughed, and the sound warmed Kimblee's skin down to his bones and set the marrow on fire. The walls of the cell seemed suddenly too small to contain them both, the air heating up with electric emotion and huge, beastly power.

Kimblee could not express it enough; he was a very, very lucky man.


	6. Kiss

The first kiss had been an accident.

It had happened in the middle of a raid; an entire Ishvalan town, overflowing with targets, both the original populace and refugees that had been hiding there. Kimblee had been working almost entirely on his own, given free reign at the podium, the score blank save for one simple instruction: leave nothing alive. Crescendo to forte, and keep playing until the bars run out. He hadn't had to worry about maintaining protocol or right appearances, hadn't had to worry about any useless Amestrian soldiers in the line of fire. Complete destruction. The unrestrained power had been flowing through his body like a drug, raw and barely controlled and intensely pleasurable. Every breath, every heartbeat had never felt more real; it was during these moments that Kimblee was truly himself, truly alive, his every nerve alight and every neuron firing, one man on top of the world. A king, a conductor, the survivor.

Though of course, they had been there too. The demon with violet eyes.

The energy around them had been so intense, so intoxicating, and the bloodlust in the air so sweet that Kimblee hadn't really noticed how close he had gotten to them until they were practically touching, his conscious mind not aware of what his body was planning to do until there was a particularly beautiful detonation- and then he had been holding them, tilting their chin up so lips could meet, clutching their body close as though they were the only thing left in the universe. He remembered being surprised- surprised at himself for his actions, surprised at how cold their skin was, surprised when they started kissing him back. The dust and heat of the desert wind breaking around their entwined bodies, his hands crushing the small of their back and neck, the smell of burning corpses and hot metal in the air; the throbbing of the Philosopher's Stone alongside his own pounding heart. Perhaps it was then that he had known, for the first time with certainty, that he was in love. An accident, yes, but not a mistake.

The second kiss had been later, during the night, Kimblee having gone out to stare at the moon like a madman (or a dull-witted romantic) with his fingers tracing his lips and his heart buzzing, its strings being plucked at like a harp. They had come to him in the form of a vulture, a hideous desert bird with a gore-stained beak and rotting bald skin, and he had found them indescribably beautiful even then. And when they had taken on their own skin again he had been unable to resist, pulling them in close, marvelling then in how soft their cool flesh was, and how they smelled dark like the inside of a coffin, and how their mouth tasted like blood. It had been gentler that time, sweeter, more like the way couples did it love stories, meeting each other in secret under the light of the stars.

The third kiss had been after a murder, and Envy had been laughing over it so sweetly that Kimblee's heart had practically melted- nothing deserved to be that cute, after doing something so horrible- and he had held them to press fleeting lips wherever he could, cheeks and nose and chin and throat, feeling like a dehydrated man given drink. Needing to touch them everywhere, as though they would disappear if he didn't pin down every spot with his mouth. He had thought back then that they could easily leave him- they were immortal and perfect, and he was just a man. Something disposable to an angel of death.

The thirteenth kiss had been when that illusion was shattered; when he had discovered that they could die, and make mistakes, and were in reality a grotesque abomination with no soul- a scourge on the face of alchemical progress with scaly green skin and contorted limbs. It had been a wonderful sight to see- perfection was never as fascinating, never as thrilling as corruption. And it had been reassuring to Kimblee to know that the creature he held so close to his heart was living after all- capable of failure and loss like anyone else, real, not something distant and heavenly and beyond human comprehension. He had loved them even more after that discovery, and told them so, told them how beautiful they were. They hadn't believed him (to think, the thing he found so wonderful was insecure, how charming was that) and so he had kissed them as they were, pressing his lips to their snout and stroking the reptile skin there. They had gone quiet for a long time after that- Kimblee wondered if anyone in their very long life had ever loved them for what they really were before. He imagined no. Most humans were too weak and simple-minded to understand true beauty.

The sixty-seventh kiss had been after the trial, when he had been sentenced- against all public expectation, which had been begging for his blood- to life in prison for his war crimes in Ishval; the judge who had conducted the trial came to him in his holding cell to give him a private word, and he had asked them what had become of the real one, whether the judge had screamed or cried when he had died. Envy had laughed and told him the story (or a story, it didn't matter if it was true), purring evil secrets in his ear and telling him that even this would not last forever. When the strong public sentiment died down, and when the time was ripe and ready to be picked, they would get him out of prison and give him free reign again. The kiss then had been very hot and passionate, fuelled by wicked imaginings and erotic excitement, a battle of tongues and fangs in the dark.

Eventually, he had been forced to lose count- in the federal penitentiary, where there was no concept of time, it had become impossible to give numerical value to every kiss he had received in between those dark walls. In a place with no sensation save dull grey monotony- the torture of a cell in solitary confinement- those kisses had burned like fireworks, the feeling of them almost too much, a powerful drug he had become addicted to and craved desperately in every moment of their absence.

He had been kissed in the hospital, too, after losing for the first time in battle to Ishvalan trash. They had been so angry with him then that it had hurt, digging into his wound with sharp claws and biting at his tongue, insane with disappointment in his abilities and fear of losing him. In a way, it had been sweet, to see how much they cared- and once his wounds had been healed in the red light of the Philosopher's Stone he had been able to appreciate that fact in full.

He had been kissed before the Promised Day, when Envy had been shaking with a wild mixture of excitement and fear, knowing that all of their careful planning and manipulating was going to come to head with too many variables still left unchecked. That kiss had been drawn out into minutes- furious and hungry at first, and then tapering away into sweetness and soft breathing. Both knowing how fragile the force of a human heart was in the face of God. It had been the last kiss Kimblee had ever received from them…

...as a human, at least.

And had there been kisses after?

Well, yes, but again...far too many to count. That was the problem with immortality- after so many years, it became hard to keep track.


	7. Void

It had all happened too fast.

Envy wrapped their arms around their stomach, doubling over, feeling a wave of icy horror flood their body. The truth of their situation was just starting to settle in, and with it, a horrible claustrophobic panic. How could this be happening? How could this be real? Their long life flickered in pieces behind their eyes, all of their plans, all of their goals and memories- there had been so much, so much that had already happened and so much to come. This couldn't be it. After all they had worked for, it couldn't end here.

Trapped in the belly of a beast.

Lukewarm blood lapped at Envy's calves, pulling, like it wanted to suck them in, and the air smelled sweet and cloying with death. The ground underneath their feet was uneven, dust and shards of bone making a grit against their skin. They started to shake, feeling waves of raw horror break over their shoulders, a prickling feeling like many thousands of hot-footed insects crawling down their back. The only sound they could hear, though their ears strained, was their own haphazard breathing- and they could see nothing. No form of eye could pick up light where there was none. Oh, God. There was no light. There was nothing. There was nothing and they were trapped here-

Envy covered their mouth with their hands and screamed, the primal sound of all their feelings released, fear and gut-wrenching horror and denial. They tried to stifle it because they wanted to let it out, but they didn't want to hear it, afraid of what the noise would become in the dark.

It had happened far too fast for the consequences to be justified. They had been trying to grab that idiot boy, FullMetal, from out of Gluttony's way, knowing well that he had one of the best chances at taking down Father in the end-game, and then there had been a world-rending blast of hot air and suction and confusing light and then they had been gone. Swallowed. They had ended up here, their entire life destroyed, because of one split-second decision made in the heat of battle by a distracted mind…

Perhaps a different Envy would have accepted it. The Envy from a long time ago, that had spent its days curled in the smallest and darkest corners of the Underground, suffocating on what they were and what they would never be. The one that deep down, really had wanted- more than anything else- to just die. The Envy that had been unable to deal with the intense hatred they had been born with, unable to see their reflection with anything but disgust, with only their cheap mask of false superiority to live for (and that was nothing worth living for). The Envy that had tried, once or twice, to stop feeling so much, tried to stop feeling forever, but had never been brave enough to finish it…

Maybe that Envy would have accepted this silent fate in the blood lake, caught in the place where there was no escape, but the one that was actually there could not.

They tried to even their breathing, it was coming out ragged, heat flooding up from behind their eyes, their mind still unable to fully reconcile their situation with reality. There was no exit in the void of Gluttony's stomach. There was no way past the False Gate, its hinges were rusted shut from all the blood and the doors opened onto nothing. They would be here until they died. Everything they had, everything they were, gone to waste and rot and nothingness. Terminated. Bye-bye, Envy the Bizarre.

Would he miss them?

Surely he would. He loved them, they knew.

They wondered when he would know what had happened. He would be waiting for them to come visit- how long before he realized there was something amiss? A few days? A week? Eventually he would start to wonder why they hadn't come for him. Eventually he would begin to worry, even if just a little, probably telling himself that they were fine, being immortal and perfectly capable of caring for themself. He would still look for them, though, at first in all the wrong places, their favourite haunts and secret nooks. He would go to Central and scan all the faces of all the people in Headquarters, knowing he would recognize them instantly if they were there, no matter the face they were wearing. He would even go to the Underground, he knew how to get in, but he wouldn't find them. He never would.

When would he learn what had happened? Would Gluttony tell him? Father? Would it matter? Would anyone know? What would his expression be, when he discovered that they were never coming back?

Envy's chest hurt. It felt as though their heart was going to fail on them- there was something sick inside it, something cold and all-consuming and rotten, putting weight on all of their limbs and winding forward the clocks of time, making them feel old and weak as they never had before. Perhaps this was what humans called grief.

Yes, in that moment Envy was grieving- for their own sake, in part, knowing now that they had no future outside of this empty and hopeless place, but mostly they were grieving for Kimblee. They were a ghost to him now, only capable of memory and tears in the void, nothing and no one and entirely without hope, but he would still be missing them. He would still be there- the survivor, but now in the worst possible sense.

For the first time in their very long and hateful life, they didn't want someone else to feel as horrible as they did.

Suddenly, the quality of the black before Envy's eyes changed, a shift in the darkness as it was touched by light. They turned to examine it, their eyes subconsciously changing to be sharper and more accurate, taking on the build and quality of a predator bird. A light source from very far away danced in their vision- a torch, perhaps? How could something like that exist in here? Unless…

Perhaps the FullMetal Pipsqueak and his Xingese friend had survived. Envy hadn't really been thinking of him, as inconsequential as a fly in the face of their suffering, but there it was. A light. Fire. Someone else in this lonely place.

Suddenly, something started burning inside Envy. A switch was flicked and molten lava poured into their belly, a rage pure enough to make Wrath jealous.

This was his fault.

If that alchemist hadn't been so stupid, so selfish and boreish and pig-headed, Envy wouldn't be here. They would still be alive, real, a working piece in the motions of the world, and they would be able to see Kimblee again.

Envy was going to make him suffer for what he had done to them. They were going to make him wish he had never been born. They knew how to inflict pain unlike any other, the devices of all nature's children at their disposal, and they knew how to make it last. If there was nothing down here but Envy and that idiot child, they would punish him for as long as they could, become the devil in their own personal Hell. He deserved it, for making them feel this way. He deserved it for what it was going to do to Kimblee.

With bared teeth they started to approach the light, the blood sloshing around their ankles as it parted. They could feel their true form bubbling up under the surface of their skin, on the verge of breaking out, unable to be constrained any longer. No matter. That was just fine, actually.

If we're going to die down here, I might as well show you something cool, huh?


	8. Want

Kimblee's squad was traveling again.

Because of the particular nature of their work, alchemists and their military accompaniment were always being shuffled around the battlefield, powerful chess pieces to be placed in the optimum strategic positions. Kimblee himself was moved with even greater frequency than the average- due to the efficiency of his style, there was no reason to keep him in one place for very long. Wherever he went the war was quelled in days, the burning infection that was Ishval soothed and restored to silence. Silence, and wreckage, and smoke. The work was beautiful- but other things were not.

For example, the inside of the military truck felt like a tin can. The off-road terrain rattled and scraped and the grating sounds were amplified by the hollow interior where he sat, squished like a preserved fish into a bench and surrounded by the hot and heavy presence of other people, their breath and skin smelling of alcohol and tobacco and gunpowder. Their eyes shifted around and their mouths hung open, the silence not a silence at all, each one brave enough to go to war but not one brave enough to speak.

In the beginning, it hadn't been like this- the group had chatted and laughed and shoved each other around, raucous and quick to have a good time, complaining to each other about having to babysit some failed State Alchemist that no one had ever heard of. What a good time for the lads, a war. Then the battles had really begun and they had started to really see what this was all about, and they had become quieter, slept less easily, talked less openly. And perhaps Kimblee's attitude out in the field was a little poor, a bit improper, because they had started to see what he really was, and now they didn't look him in the eye because they thought they were better, but because they were afraid.

Kimblee noticed these things, but none of them made an impression on his mind. He didn't care what the others said about him- all he cared about was getting back to work. Back to the front line, with all the noise and the power and the exhilaration. His palms tingled.

On the inside of his uniform- in a secret pocket he had sewn against his breast- the Stone warmed, seeming somehow to react to his excited thoughts. Patience, he tried to tell it, he would be back in the field tomorrow. This car ride, this present would not last for long. Soon, he would be truly awake, awake and alive in a world of his own making. This thought satisfied him, and he relaxed, looking up at the dark metal ceiling, drawing his mind away from the rattling and the jerks under the wheels and the humid stink of bodies packed too close for too long. He could withstand it all if he could return to that place.

Or could he?

Something else itched at Kimblee's mind, a want underneath his want. For so long, he had been purely satisfied with his work, feeling that he could live his entire life under any circumstances, if only he could have it. But there was another desire now- an inexplicable feeling, a longing that burned in his stomach. On the surface it was his natural curiosity as an alchemist, and indeed he could explain it that way, but there was some deeper portion to it that he didn't entirely want to understand, an emotion he had never truly felt before…

Oh, when would he be able to see that again?

The Stone's heat flared again alongside his heart (or was that feeling the heart itself, it was almost frightening that he couldn't tell), energy spiking in remembrance of where it had come from. Images unbidden came fluttering through his mind- pale skin and a sharp voice, as sharp as their teeth, eyes that pierced Kimblee to the bone and a laugh that sent waves of heat down his spine. It was almost as good as an explosion and yet also somehow better, because they were an unknown, something he had not yet broken down and comprehended, a crystal with facets yet unseen.

Yes, he very much wanted to see them again. He wanted to see them so much it concerned him. He had never felt this way over any person (if they were a person) before. Kimblee knew in the back of his mind that there was a word for this sort of feeling, a word that people used that he had never touched before, a word he didn't even want to think clearly in case it was true-

-he wouldn't yet say it was love-

-a feeling that was in general, the antithesis of everything that Kimblee was.

And yet still, he was impatient.

He could barely wait until they came to him again.


	9. Murderer

"Okay, okay," said Envy, giggling and blowing a strand of hair from their face. "You have to hear this."

They were lying beside him on the prison floor, the small cot in the cell declothed and spread out beneath them so they could lie like lovers did. Their face was resting next to Kimblee's shoulder, and they were so close he could pick out every detail in their features, the things that slipped past human perception at a greater distance. They had no pores in their skin, and their lashes and eyebrows were sharp and precise, the texture and colour the same as the wild green spines on their head; from here he could see how their eyes glittered subtly like a snake's, and the faint individual lines in their lips. He felt an urge to kiss them- but they were talking, and clearly wanted him to listen.

"So, you know that guy, right?" they said, blinking at him, eyes moving rapidly in their sockets. They were playing with their hair, pulling down one strand to twirl it around their fingers, a very feminine gesture that they rarely used- unless they were especially amused by something. But as for what they had said-

"You're going to have to be more specific, my dear," murmured Kimblee lazily, still marvelling at how they moved as they twisted onto their side, propping their head up with one arm to stare at him even more intently, an adorable little smile forming on their lips.

"You know him. He was in Ishval with you. Try and guess."

They had a wicked look on their face as they said that, their free hand sliding up under his prison slip to feel his stomach, the cold skin of their fingers sending a small shock through his nervous system. Kimblee made a humming noise, playing along, fixated on the shape of their mouth.

"Maybe...Armstrong? Were you messing with him?" Envy bit their lower lip with sharp teeth and shook their head, eyes shining. Something had gotten them very excited. It was sweet to see them like this, so worked up and mischievous, and he knew that if they were in this sort of mood they must have done something downright horrible. He guessed again.

"Was it Mustang?" When he said the name something in their eyes snapped, and Envy burst out laughing, all of the energy in their body spilling out like water from a flooded dam, the sound bouncing around the prison walls and becoming larger than life. The intensity of it sent little shivers of delight down his spine.

Kimblee was sure, on some nights, that the guards and other prisoners could hear them. He entertained himself sometimes by imagining what they must think.

"Noo," Envy purred when their laughter had died down, their fingers now tracing circles on his chest, his shirt hiked up practically to his neck. "But you're very close. A good friend of Mustang's. Do you remember him…?"

Kimblee thought he knew now who they were speaking of- he could vaguely recall a face often seen alongside the Flame Alchemist in Ishval, a handsome young man with dark hair and glasses…

"His name was Hughes," Envy breathed, the past tense violently apparent, and they licked their teeth, the image of a satisfied predator having sunk their fangs into a juicy piece of meat. "Do you wanna hear what I did to him?"

Their eyes were gleaming in the half-light, their tongue slipping out to touch their bottom lip, face close enough now that he was breathing in their air- and he was sure they could feel it, his heart was beating fast and his blood becoming hotter, when they got this way they were gorgeous beyond belief. And yes, he did want to hear.

"He was smart," said Envy, entwining one leg with his to bring their bodies even closer. "A little too smart. Couldn't keep him around."

They rested their chin on his shoulder, and even that single point of pressure was painful from their weight, but Kimblee didn't care. If he found a bruise there later he would treasure it.

"Soo, we had to kill him, right? And that was good. It was all good. I think he was trying to tell someone, 'cause he went out to a telephone booth, right? That actually just made it easier, though. But that's not the good part."

They had the most insane look on their face now, he could tell they were getting to the punchline, the tension and leftover bloodlust in the air building to the point where he could almost taste it.

"I was gonna do it as Maria Ross. Easy, right, and she would make a good scapegoat if we needed one. But…"

The world was frozen around them in Kimblee's eyes, crystalline, their eyes and lips and cold fingertips the only things left in the universe.

"...he had this picture...it had fallen out of his jacket, I think."

Their nose was brushing his cheek now, and they spoke very softly, and he could feel faint puffs of cold air on his skin.

"He was in it, and this beautiful woman, and a little girl. Ah, such a darling little girl, the kind a painter would cast as an angel. I bet she'll cry, now that he's gone. Can you guess what it was, the last thing he saw? Can you guess who was holding the gun for him?"

Kimblee knew, Kimblee knew exactly what they had done because he knew what they liked, and this was the kind of thing that Envy enjoyed most of all. And he remembered Hughes now- the man who spoke of nothing but his girlfriend, the woman he had said he would marry if he ever escaped Ishval. A tiresome man, with romantic ideals and a do-good attitude and too big of a heart. A good man, was what people would say- oh, but Envy was evil, and the fact of it was exciting him beyond belief, burning him from the inside out with terrible passion. Their next words came out a broken whisper, their voice soft and cracked from their own malicious glee, their palm coming to rest over his throbbing heart.

"...I was dressed as his wife when I killed him-"

Kimblee twisted and practically crushed their mouths together, unable to hold back any longer, and Envy accepted him easily, rolling over so he could pin them to the floor with his bound hands and ravish them. They were giggling as he did it, and he swallowed their laughter like it was the cure to every human ailment, locking their body to his with the embrace of a starved man.

They were so terrible, they were, and Kimblee loved it.

When the act was done and Kimblee's sweat was cooling, and they were dozing in his arms he pressed his face into their hair and he wished he could go with them, knowing they were sure to leave soon and his heart aching as though they were already gone. He only felt these things dimly behind the curtain of pleasant fluff that came to every human in times like these, but he felt it nonetheless. He wanted to be free.

"Be patient," mumbled Envy into his skin, somehow knowing exactly what he had been thinking. Their eyes were cuttingly awake as they looked back at him, and they nipped lightly at his throat, their expression mischevious. "It won't be much longer, I promise."

The next day, Kimblee's meagre prison breakfast was accompanied by the morning paper, which was a rare treat sometimes given to the prisoners in solitary, whenever the warden felt he needed to dribble a little humanity into their lives. On the front page there was a murder- and even though he already knew all the details, it was exciting nonetheless.

Kimblee felt that he was going to have a very nice day.


	10. Pass

The air in the adjudication chamber was sticky with summer heat but also somehow stale, sealed in behind heavy stone walls of archaic design, the room becoming through its very shape and nature an oversized oven. The military banners strung up along the walls and the lines of armed guards gave an almost medieval impression; it was really very distasteful,this whole thing, as far as Envy was concerned. Did the trials really have to take place somewhere like this, with such excessive pomp, such intent to impress? There was no purpose to it, it was all stylistic only, and they complained about it to themself with bitter little thoughts like the poison in apple seeds.

But then, they were self-aware enough to acknowledge that their feelings were likely affected by their situation (usually, they could appreciate a sense of style); it was hugely annoying, being stuck in this stupid, sweltering room in the body of an ugly, fat old woman, dealing with the kinds of people that came to events like these. Alchemists were some of the trashiest human beings in the world, as far as they were concerned, and beginning alchemists were especially bad- so full of themselves, either with simple arrogance in their abilities or wild dreams of grandeur or (worst of all) tortured images of self-importance. And there was a particular number of them around today- after all, it was the State Alchemist exam.

And Wrath had bailed on it, the little shit. Apparently there had been some kind of military emergency at the southern border and he had taken off, leaving the judgment of the day's event up to the Federal Board of Alchemy; and that would have been fine, whatever, but Father said that someone who wasn't human had to be there, to oversee and report back directly, and when in a situation like that there was only one amongst the homunculi with a suitable set of skills.

Now they were stuck here for the whole day, pretending to be the chairwoman Agatha Kitsen (the real one, vacationing in the East, not that any of her colleagues cared enough about her to take note of it), sitting packed into rolls of flab on a large and overly imposing panel in the stupid stone room, pushing their spectacles up on their nose and taking notes that were becoming increasingly brief and snide as the day went on.

Most of the attempts were pathetic, not even worth mentioning, and the people who made them were so dreadfully predictable. Stellar scholars who had aced the written portion strutted in like fluffed up peacocks with sagging bellies and weak chins, confident that they would be leaving with a grand title and a shiny new pocket watch- only to flub the practical, make a block out of sand or a shitty paper mâché tower or some other piece of half-formed crap. All theory, no skill, what good was that? Then there were the ones that came to prove themselves, third sons usually, or daughters from conservative households, always rich and entitled and petty. No mental discipline in those ones, and no crown for them, either, thinking that life worked just by showing up and having people hand you things. There were the pseudoscientists, and the passion projects, and the desperately poor, and so many other types, all easily marked by their walk and the way they held themselves and the little numbers describing their test scores the adjudicators received when they walked in.

As the day went on Envy became increasingly exasperated- alchemists always liked to think that they were special, that they were some central point in the world, even when they weren't. Hell, especially when they weren't. Did these people not realize that the State Alchemist title only went to the best of the best? Silver watches weren't welfare candy. Pathetic, the lot of them, and so useless- how many had come through and made art, now, trying to form pretty sculptures from stone or weaving wood into baskets or changing the colours of flower petals? What did they think they were here for? Surely the tasteless decor would give them some sense of it. Were they living in some kind of bubble, not understanding that Amestris was a country of war?

Perhaps they would, soon. Father was planning something very nasty in the south, in that little annexed desert area where the locals were giving Wrath so much trouble. Oh, something very wicked was to be done there indeed, and the State Alchemists would no doubt be put to good use- but it wasn't for a while yet, at least another year. Things needed more time to brew.

There came a familiar rustling of paper as notes were handed across the panel, the last failed candidate exiting the room with a bowed head and the test score of the next being passed down. When Envy received their paper they gave it only a slight passover with their eyes- a 72 percent, that was pretty high, but it didn't matter in the slightest.

The name on the paper was 'Zolf J. Kimblee', and that didn't matter, either.

They tossed the paper to the corner of their desk and scribbled a slightly violent-looking spiral onto their page of notes. There was an almost-silence for a few moments as the cleaning crew removed the transmutation of the last contestant (a sagging and dysfunctional chair made from twigs) and then the great stone door on the far side of the room was opened again.

The man that entered was young, younger than his test would have suggested, tall and thin with pale skin and black hair that was slightly too long, tied back at the nape of his neck. He was the kind of man that was almost handsome, with strong features that were slightly too sharp to be traditionally attractive, a large nose, and eyebrows that gave his face an unusual expression- Envy couldn't decide if that expression was bored, or predatory, but they imagined in truth it was neither. He wore a cheap-looking, but also meticulously groomed grey suit, giving a mixed impression of both low and high class, though they were fairly certain he was the former (he was an alchemist, after all). At least, he was somewhat striking to look at.

The pager announced his name and had him confirm it, stating his current city of residence, age, and education. He claimed he was self-taught, an unapprenticed alchemist, and as soon as he did Envy had to refrain from scoffing. These types were usually the worst, they had no idea what they were doing and no one to tell them so, and as such they developed an extremely inflated sense of their abilities. When he was prompted to state his focus of study and the goal he aimed to achieve by becoming a State Alchemist, they were fully prepared to listen to some grandiose and long winded tirade about his skills and innovation and how he would go down in history-

"I believe I can be of service to this country. That is all." said the man, and the way he said it surprised Envy, there was something a little strange about the tone of his voice- too calm, too genial, like he was hiding something in it. Nervousness? It didn't seem so, something else, some little shadow or touch of darkness, mirrored in the slightly flat look of his eyes. The statement had been patriotic on the surface, but underneath there was a taste of a different honesty, of some other unstated desire.

Now, they looked at him more closely- yes, now that they were paying attention there was something off about him, everything was slightly shifted, like a familiar room with objects moved unwittingly. If one focused on those little twists- the way he held his head, the lack of wrinkles in his tie, the few unkempt hairs coming loose at the nape of his neck- he suddenly became almost inhuman to behold; yet when all the parts were considered as one he was nothing but ordinary. How unusual; how surprising.

They realized then that he had the kind of face one often saw on criminals- the grand kind, that was, the serial killers and rapists with hearts of ice that made suffering a kind of art, the ones that were only caught when they wanted to be. Those kinds of men (for they were almost invariably men, in Envy's experience) had very strange expressions indeed, faces like masks of humanity strapped to viper's heads, trying to portray emotions that were not truly felt in order to fit in with the crowd. Wolves in sheep's clothing. Yes, he looked very much like one of those kinds of men, didn't he?

Looking to the side, they didn't think any of the other judges had noticed- but then, they wouldn't, would they, that was the point. Envy had much more experience with reading the language of the human body than most.

Well, now he had their attention, at least. But still, they wouldn't let themself get their hopes up for anything good.

From his pack of brought supplies the man- Kimblee, his name stuck a little in their head- pulled out chalk for making a circle and a number of differing materials; a block of wood, a large flat stone, a pipe of steel and then, finally, a cage containing a living rabbit. Was he some kind of chimera specialist? He hadn't said.

With no words or particular flourishes Kimblee traced out four circles on the floor, all strangely identical, the meanings of which Envy could not decipher (they were no specialist in alchemy, though they pretended to be one now) and in the middle of each circle he placed one of the four objects; wood, in the first, then the stone, then the steel and finally the rabbit, which he removed from its cage, allowing it to sit docile and undisturbed (perhaps it had been drugged). Then he spoke-

"This is a demonstration," he said, and his voice still held that same strange undercurrent that it had before, "to show that, when prompted, materials of every kind can be made to do the same thing."

That triggered a few small murmurs from the rest of the panel, the sound of pens scratching faintly in the air, and Envy realized they had forgotten to pretend they were taking notes, so intent they were on his performance. What was he going to do?

With no further adieu Kimblee crossed his palms over the first circle, with the wood, and the lines lit up like any transmutation, and then in the same instant the light faded the block of wood exploded.

Several members of the panel started in their seats, and Envy's jaw dropped, the noise had been almost deafening. Now, this was starting to go somewhere!

Somehow, Kimblee was unmarked by the splinters of shattered wood, he had managed to direct the force away from himself- that showed both talent and power. And the entire block had been completely destroyed, he had taken only a second to rip the thing to fragments of its former self. He hadn't bothered to reshape it into anything- no, because that wasn't the point, he wasn't trying to make an object, what he had made instead was a marvellous expulsion of force, the weaponization of an otherwise harmless object. This was the best thing that had happened all day.

He moved next to the stone- a river rock, from the look of it- and did the same; similarly, it burst into a million pieces with a sound like a gunshot, and Envy could feel themself smiling. The steel pipe met the same fate, all in rapid succession, and this time an older man sitting to their left let out a little scream, perhaps thinking that the shards of metal (made white-hot from the force of the transmutation) would have harmed him. Oh, and that was the good part of it- they very well could have.

Kimblee stepped over to the last circle now, his face still that too-calm mask of geniality and good manners, and as he moved to cross his palms one of the women let out a little 'oh', not a protest quite, but a disturbed sound nonetheless- and then the rabbit blew up, the sound a loud and wet squelch, a fraction of a second turning the creature to a giant stain of red smeared across the floor in a splatter pattern. They noticed that he had not controlled this transmutation quite as perfectly- a splash of blood had struck him across the cheek, he reached to wipe it aside with one hand, and as he did so he looked up at them, somehow meeting their eyes with a kind of laserlike accuracy. For a second he stared, expressionless, and then his brows furrowed slightly- there was something like confusion in his eyes, why would that be? What did he see?

(And though Envy had no way of knowing this Kimblee had a very eerie sense of vertigo when he looked at the fat woman in the panel, and the thought that crossed his mind was wordless and involuntary, a prickling of the sixth sense translated best into terms as this: that-thing-is-not-a-woman-it-is-not-what-it-seems. He thought this again the next time he saw Envy, wearing the body of a young male private, and soon after that he started connecting the dots. He always knew who they were, no matter what they looked like.)

He looked away when the pager called the end of the demonstration, and stood for a moment while more notes were made, and then he was escorted from the room, like all the others before him, crew sweeping in to clean up the mess he had left. He didn't look at them again, but still...

Oh, they would be keeping their eye on this one. He was very exciting, yes, he would be going places.

To Father they wrote a glowing note, describing with genuine excitement what they had seen, what he had done, confident that their creator would see the possibilities here just as they did. They would get this one his silver watch, no matter what strings they had to pull. He had so much potential, and so much weaponizing force; they would have to get him something portable for his transmutations, to save time, gloves maybe, like the young man from last year with the borderline-Xingese features and the fire at his fingertips, but that might not be enough- his work was so violent after all, he might need something more permanent-

Were they getting ahead of themself, maybe? Were they a little bit too excited? Why? There was something about him that they liked, all of those strange traits combined were rather charming. Did their heart beat a little bit faster when they thought of him? Perhaps. He was different from most other humans.

Zolf J. Kimblee, huh.


	11. Cute

BOOM!

The dusty stone arch collapsed, broken chunks the size of horses falling to the cobblestone floor of the narrow street below. Screams from the Ishvalans sang out- foolish they were, for staying clustered in such a tight group, allowing themselves to be driven like cattle in their fear by the smaller explosions to such a vulnerable position. Humans in distress became less like humans, Kimblee had observed, and more like dumb animals, incapable of the rational thought that might save them. Perhaps, if they had split off into the maze of high walls and narrow windows that made up the slums of the Ishvalan city, some more would have escaped...but it was too late for that now.

Kimblee approached those that had not been squashed by the falling arch, his military uniform unbuttoned at the collar but otherwise impeccable, unstained by sand or blood or sick, like some of the other soldiers. The Ishvalans screamed more when they saw him, their red eyes wide and bulging- he barely saw faces in that mass, but instead a collection of gaping mouths and sunken cheeks and dirty teeth. Their hands scrabbled at the displaced rock, no doubt breaking their own fingernails- were these ones all women? He hadn't noticed until now.

With another strike of his palms to the hard, dry ground the remainders were done away with; though for a second, before his hands touched the earth, he felt a little prickle in the back of his mind, an awareness of something else. There wasn't time for the feeling to mature into a thought before the world was shaking again, the shrieks changing in tone from fear to pain and then the choking gurgles of death, the music of crushed lungs and broken windpipes and shredded gut organs. The dust stirred up by the wind had a bit of a pink tinge to it, no doubt from all the blood.

As the air cleared Kimblee had a moment to enjoy his handiwork- but he had been thinking of something, hadn't he? What was it? There was a tab open in his head but he couldn't remember what it had been placed there for. Then, just before he was about to banish the thought, a flash of red lightning caught his eye, crackling as one of the corpses knit itself back together, crushed bones becoming whole again and ripped veins sewing themselves into life. When the act was finished the Ishvalan woman stood, her robe in disarray to reveal smooth brown skin, and luscious white hair that fell across her shoulders in waves. Kimblee raised an eyebrow at 'her', but he couldn't keep a little smile from his lips. The thing didn't look so much like the real Ishvalan women he had seen, with their stubby and boxlike figures, but rather more like a recoloured version of the devil with the serpent on her chest and the nails sharper than obsidian, the one he had met only once or twice. She was a seductive creature, but too tame, she paled in comparison...

"What are you doing here?" he called, and the woman pouted at him, posing like a child's idea of sexuality, thrusting out her ample breasts and curving back her hips to expose the plump flesh on her rear. It seemed almost like a joke- exaggerated and ineffective.

"I was waiting for you to notice me," she said petulantly, blinking red doe's eyes at him. Her voice was as silky as the feathers of a mourning dove. "You were so wrapped up in your work, you weren't paying attention at all."

Kimblee just shrugged in reply, turning his eyes back to the wreckage, drawn slightly by the sight of a dismembered arm lying away from the majority of the destruction, its original owner unclear.

"That's not a good look on you, you know," he added idly, and the woman hummed, saccharine and kittenish in the back of her throat.

"Then what would you prefer?"

Kimblee rolled his eyes at the display and scuffed his boot in the dust on the road- the only part of his uniform he couldn't help but sully.

"Our tastes are much the same, I think." he said, and from the corner of his vision he saw the red light sparkle to life again, flashing on the road and the remains of the arch, brighter and sweeter than blood.

When he looked back, his blue eyes met purple ones, and flawless white skin that shone like glass in the sun. Envy shook out the long green spikes of their hair, as though in shapeshifting it had been put out of place. They weren't pouting anymore, and they stood quite differently, leaning back against the wall of a building with their arms crossed over their flat chest.

"Much cuter," Kimblee said, and they laughed at him, their voice no longer the honeyed milk of the temptress, but hard and high and rough around the edges, like the grinding of a blade against a whetstone. Kimblee's spine prickled unwillingly at the sound.

"Most men wouldn't like this," they told him in that hot voice, gesturing with one hand down their body- short and stocky, with hard muscles in their arms and thighs and strong hands. A wide, youthful face, with eyes as sharp as razor blades. Unnatural and deathly colouration, the contrast too harsh, the stance of their legs unkind and standoffish. Both masculine and feminine, but neither female nor male.

"What's wrong with this?" he replied, mirroring their sweeping gesture with his own hand, and they smiled (genuinely, he thought), exposing sharp teeth with not enough gums. He was about to say something else- something silly, like and I'm not most men- when a call sounded from behind; Kimblee's squadron was catching up to him, their boots echoed against the abandoned cityscape, the click of their guns in their holsters and the shuffle of their uniforms unrefined, and brutishly loud. Kimblee turned to look and regretted it immediately- for the moment he did so the ozone hiss of a transmutation sounded again, and by the time he had whipped his head back Envy as he liked them best was gone, replaced by a slender black-furred cat that darted across the rubble and out of sight. He would have followed them then, if he could, and he resented the approaching soldiers deeply.

"Kimblee!" one of them called, and he turned again to offer that man a glare, the look no doubt strongly supported by the pile of corpses behind him. "We lost track of you. Who were you talking to?"

Kimblee sighed.


	12. Imagine

In the dark and stifled air of Kimblee's tent in the barracks, the red crystal he held between his thumb and forefinger glowed. It was a light source of its own- brilliantly red and shining, of a shade and intensity he had never seen anywhere else before. The heart in the center was the brightest, it seemed almost to move, as though it were alive. But then, in a sense it was- Kimblee was not ignorant as to the means of creating such a marvellous thing, of the natural laws of the universe. Equivalent exchange- and there was nothing more powerful than living sacrifice. The stone felt warm between his fingers. What a miracle this was- to think, he was holding an artefact of legend! A myth, real and solid between his fingers! A younger Kimblee- the boy, teaching himself alchemy from books and intuition in the dark basement of a cheap flat in Central- would have been overwhelmed by it, to the point where he might not have believed. But the Kimblee that sat there now, in the shadows as he had in his youth, had already seen myths come to life. Demons, artificial humans, such things were reportedly impossible to create, and yet…

"Do you like it?" murmured Envy in his ear, they spoke softly, and the lower register of their voice was much raspier than the one they usually used. Cold fingers touched his shoulder lightly, temptingly, as gently (he thought) as the creature could. "I had this one made just for you."

Kimblee turned his gaze away from the hypnotic stirrings of the stone (a surprisingly difficult feat- it drew his eyes like water was drawn downstream) to look at them. Envy, too, seemed hypnotized by the red light, and the whiteness of their skin reflected the colour perfectly, giving the impression that they glowed a soft pink. Violet eyes flickered in their sockets to meet his, and Kimblee became aware suddenly of how close their face was- he wondered in the back of his mind if he should kiss them. A grin as sharp as a knife was starting to creep its way across their face, the edge of one pointed canine becoming visible beneath their upper lip. They raised one narrow eyebrow at him then, and he remembered that they had asked a question.

"It's beautiful," he said, gaze drawn back to the stone. He couldn't keep himself away from it for very long- it was too magnificent, too surreal. Envy rubbed their cold cheek to his shoulder in an expression of delight, like a cat; he could feel them smiling into the thin cloth of his military nightwear.

"I knew you'd love it," they cooed, their voice ragged with excitement in their throat. "You're going to have so much fun. You have no idea…"

"Anything I can imagine," Kimblee said, thinking more than speaking, all of his vision sucked up by the incredible red light which was now the only source of illumination in the room, the sun having set long before.

"With this, I may do anything I can imagine."

Envy rocked on the bed, their weight causing it to creak alarmingly, and they gave his shoulder a slightly too-tight squeeze. He barely felt or heard these things, though, so absorbed was he in the subtle shifting of the crystal's core. So much power held there, in an object no larger or heavier than a bullet. He wondered, should he press the thing right up to his eyes, if he would be able to see the souls of the people who had been used to make it- if the strange movement he perceived there was in fact that of their bodies, writhing with the pain of damnation.

"So, what do you say?" Envy purred and, seemingly unable to control themself, they nipped the lobe of his ear sharply. Some odd animal gesture, Kimblee was sure, born from both excitement and bloodlust. It surprised him a little, the sudden pain causing him to start in his seat, and then laugh.

"Thank you," he replied, and (with the spell of the thing broken) closed his palm over the stone, where it sat warm and heavy and out-of-sight. He had to blink a few times before the imprint of it left his vision. "I will treasure it."

Envy rested their chin on his shoulder, and smiled.


	13. Imposter

(Note: This chapter takes place after 'Survival of the Fittest', another story in this series. Withiut reading that first, this last one might be a little confusing.)

Kimblee woke to the sound of rapid breathing in the dark.

The air in the luxury Cretian hotel was sweet, perfumed with sandalwood, and the silk sheets smooth to lie upon, the elaborately embroidered drapes over the four-poster bed forming eerie impressions of black-upon-black in the diluted moonlight from the wide curtained window facing north; how easy it was, under the power of night, to make ordinary or even beautiful things strange. A vase of flowers became twisted hands reaching for consumable flesh, a coat rack a gruesomely tall figure watching from the corner. The darkness stirred fears in the heart and made weak the mind; humans had not been designed for these times, they were beings that flourished in the day, needing the sun and the blue sky in order to function properly- in order to stay sane. For others, it was not the same- some creatures were meant for the night, for the suffocated underground places, for graveyards and other such planes of existence that made humans mad. He could feel the weight of one such thing pressing into the bed beside him, pushing down the feathered mattress beneath their tremendous mass, and in turning his head to look he could see how their skin picked up even the faint glow from the window, seeming to shine of its own accord, pure white and iridescent like polished marble. Marble was a good word for it; as they were, they looked like a statue, a carven image of perfect torment.

Envy sat upright, kneeling with their legs spread, face hidden in their palms to shut the world away from their eyes. Their hair looked entirely black in the light, the green not coming through as it would have under the sun, and the thick strands of it hung over their bent shoulders and brushed their thighs, on the left of which the red serpent tattoo stood out like a bloody wound. If not for the slight trembling in their limbs they could have been entirely inanimate, an artificial imitation of life formed under a careful artist's hands- but then, they were that already, weren't they? They had sculpted themself. Faintly, Kimblee heard them whimper.

"What's the matter, love?" Kimblee said, his voice clouded a little from sleep, and he reached out to touch them, rubbing one palm over the smooth skin on their knee. The question was pointless, he knew already the answer; Envy had become (more) insane in the nights of late, the colour of the sickness in their mind different than what it usually was (something a kind of sour yellow, Kimblee fancied, rather than green). It had started a few days after they had left Amestris- crossing into Creta, over the hard-drawn borders that marked the uneasy relationship between the two countries, into a nation where the people dressed and spoke and held themselves differently, and wrote using foreign words, and made use of foreign devices. A new playground, in a sense, and Envy had been overjoyed with it at first, as he had known they would be- they could be reluctant or fearful of some things, he had noticed, but when pushed that fear could turn itself into fun. Needless to say, the beginning of their "vacation" had been idyllic, full of mischief and sharp teeth and little evils.

And then this had started.

Something had crept into Envy's mind while Kimblee slept, some mad idea or emotion, and it had taken a terrible hold on their heart. It wasn't the night that had done it, he knew, though it was only during the night that it possessed them- it was something else, some inherent flaw in Envy's making, a chip in their core, triggered (Kimblee thought) by the lack of imminent danger in their current lifestyle. Underneath their sharp tongue and confident eyes, they were really very insecure. It was one of their cuter traits, as far as he was concerned. And even like this (sometimes, especially like this) they were beautiful; pain was an enjoyable thing to look at, for Kimblee. He sat up now, to run his hand up their thigh (was he imagining it, or did the ouroboros somehow burn with a deeper cold than the rest of their flesh?) and they let out a shuddering sigh, like they couldn't bring words from their head to their tongue, still unwilling to unclap their hands from over their eyes.

"You're still here, lovely," Kimblee said, and he pressed his face into the back of their neck, to smell the dark and slightly death-like scent of their hair. With his wandering hand he gave the skin on their thigh a sharp pinch, hard enough to perhaps bruise a human. "Can you feel that?"

Kimblee believed he had seen what affected Envy before, in others; the potent feeling that the surrounding world was not real, or rather could not be real, the belief that all of one's accomplishments were false and undeserved- on the tongues of military doctors the phenomenon formed itself under the title 'imposter's syndrome'. It was the thought that at any moment, the bubble could be popped, and one would discover that every achievement or good thing had in fact been a grand delusion, unreal from the beginning, or that someone else would come and expose the sufferer for the sham they were. Kimblee remembered some high-ranking officials in the military who had been like that- prodigies, often, young men and women given great opportunities for their skill (or, occasionally, their malleability) too soon and too fast. People who had seemed almost ashamed of their own advancement, like they thought they were unintentional frauds, those kinds always cracked under the pressure after a while and lost everything. And then there were others, some of the survivors of Ishval who had been similar, (a different flavour of the same malady, perhaps) sent to mental hospitals for their delusions, broken people convinced that they had died in the desert wastes with their comrades and that everything after was some kind of desperate, purgatorial dream, their happiness and comforts to be taken from them as soon as their minds caught up with their bodies. It was a nasty way to feel, from what Kimblee understood, and of course Envy (being the kind of creature they were) felt it in strength tenfold.

"It's wrong," they said to him suddenly, likely referring to the pain he had inflicted on their leg. "It's not there, that's...that's the other me." They sounded so afraid.

Kimblee hummed a little into their hair. "The other you? What do you think you look like, right now?"

They shivered, and pressed as close as he was Kimblee could feel all of their limbs move as the chill ran through their body.

"The worm…" they whispered, the words barely making it past their teeth, so ashamed were they of that part of themself. "He's hurting me...it burns…"

Ah, yes, Mustang again. Kimblee was familiar with this delusion- in previous nights, piece by piece, he had pried the fragments of Envy's hallucinations from their mouth, sewing together the other reality that took over their head when they were like this, the false existence that they believed was true when the world went dark, when Kimblee slept and wasn't around to distract them and keep them aware.

It was a strange delusion, very specific- they believed they were still in the Underground, being tortured by the Flame Alchemist, but instead of escaping- losing the vengeful colonel in the labyrinth, finding Kimblee in the remnant Pride's body, and fleeing Central, as had truly happened- they believed instead that he had reduced them to their weakest self with his fire, and that they were meant to rip their Stone out and die by their own hand.

"You don't look like a worm to me," said Kimblee in their ear, and with a flash of inspiration he took ahold of a few strands of their hair and yanked it, pulling a little gasp followed by a deep growl from their chest. "Worms don't have hair. Come on now, open your eyes."

Slowly, Envy pried their fingers from over their face- this was progress, in previous nights it had taken much more coaxing to get even this far- but their eyes were still clamped shut, the vertigo of seeing one world when another played out inside their head too disorienting to manage. They were very cute. Even like this, he found them charming.

"You're lying," they whined, voice high pitched like a child's, but they were melting in his arms, leaning back into his embrace, their brows still furrowed but much less tight.

"Hardly. You're the liar here, and you know it." said Kimblee, teasing them a little while squeezing their arms, and there was the shadow of a smile on their lips before they opened their eyes to meet his, the fiery violet shining in the dark like twin gemstones. Still, they were a little nervous, gaze flicking back and forth across the room to his face and back again, cat's pupils expanding and dilating too drastically to be healthy. Kimblee kissed them on the nose, and they sighed.

"This sucks," they mumbled, and Kimblee grinned in spite of himself at the petulant tone in their voice. He could tell it was almost an apology- the closest thing to an apology Envy could let past their lips- an acknowledgement that they kept waking him, unintentionally or otherwise, an admittance of a fear that they were displeasing him somehow. He wasn't sure, though, if they could ever really displease him- such a thing could only happen if they were to become someone other than themself.

"Let's go back to sleep," Kimblee said, guiding them back into a prone position on the bed, where their hair fanned out on the pillow like the tentacles of some underwater creature, or the leaves of a mandrake. They clung to him there, cold fingers digging into his sides and legs entwined, fastening themself to reality as a lamprey would its victim (they could never hide what they truly were, not really, though they liked to think they could) and started to drift again, whether to sleep or to their fiery nightmares he didn't yet know.

It didn't matter, though. They were getting better every night- whatever malady had struck them now was of no concern in the long run, it was simply another experience like any other. Such a disturbance would be but a blip in the face of eternity.

Thinking these thoughts, Kimblee closed his eyes again, and it was only when he opened them the next morning that he knew Envy had slept through the night, as well.


End file.
